Authorities hauled away three boats Tuesday morning from SkipperBud's Quarterdeck Marina in Sturgeon Bay, following a fire that destroyed the vessels Monday night.

Sturgeon Bay Fire Chief Tim Herlache said the call came in at 7:14 p.m. of a boat on fire. When firefighters arrived at SkipperBud's Dock B, three boats were on fire. The three boats were identified as the Mary Kay, a 44-foot Tollycraft, owned by Tom Clark of Hartford; Our Dream, 35-foot Silverton Motor Yacht, owned by Dennis Schwersenska of Oshkosh; and Article 184, a 32-foot Trojan/Carver, owned by Fred Belknap or Rockford, Ill. Article 184 was damaged to the point the name had burned off.

The interiors of all three boats were blackened, burned and melted. Firefighters untied a fourth boat and pushed it out onto the water.

The boats were hauled away by Roen Salvage of Sturgeon Bay Tuesday morning. An investigation will take place once the boats are on land.

There were no injuries. The scene was cleared at 1:01 a.m. Monday.

The cause of the fire is "undetermined," said Sturgeon Bay Assistant Fire Chief Tim Dietman.

Three boats were engulfed in flames at the Quarterdeck Marina in Sturgeon Bay on Monday evening.(Photo: Submitted photo by Leslie Gast)

Dietman said the State Fire Marshal's office was notified because of the cost of the boats, but "they are not coming up at this time" because the fire has not been deemed suspicious.

"There is nothing that appears, at this time, that seems suspicious. Last night or earlier in the morning, we reviewed our port security camera," Porter said. "And we have a very good idea after viewing that video of the area of origin based on what we see on our camera system."

Scott Bird, manager at SkipperBud's Quarter Deck Marina, said two of the three boats were being brokered by SkipperBuds for sale.

Bird said the Mary Kay and Our Dream were worth approximately about $100,000 each. He declined to name customers who owned the boats. The boats were insured.

"The fire department did an exceptional job knocking it down. Nothing sank, no fuel was spilt," Bird said.

The fire left one pier charred, but there was no electrical damage overall, he said.

Herlache said the fire could have been a lot worse.

"Because they're parked so close and most of them are made of fiberglass – which burns very hot and quiet readily – the danger is the fire jumps … the first vessel to the second vessel to the third," Herlache said.

This can take what might have been a half-million-dollar fire on one yacht and turn it into a multimillion-dollar fire.

"It's not uncommon for marina fires to lose a whole slip, a whole pier," he said.

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Thick smoke billowed from the Quarterdeck Marina after a boat apparently caught on fire about 7 pm Monday night on the Sturgeon Bay Canal.(Photo: Tina M. Gohr/Door County Advocate)

Firefighters had no problems getting water to extinguish the blaze because the pier is prepiped for water, Herlache said.

"Fortunately the city of Sturgeon Bay has an ordinance that requires all marinas that have a pier longer than 150-feet to be prepiped with water lines," he said. Firefighters still had to carry hose packs out onto the pier.

Dive teams were using airbags to try and stabilize the boats until Roen Salvage Co. arrived. One boat, Our Dream, was in danger of sinking and crews prepared to pump water out of it and into the third, unnamed damaged boat.

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Firefighters were able to bring a blaze that damaged three boats under control fairly quickly Monday at Quarterdeck Marina in Sturgeon Bay.(Photo: Samantha Hernandez/Door County Advocate)

Herlache said the reason for pumping water from one boat to the next was to keep debris out of the water. Booms were deployed around the boats to aid in keeping the debris out of the water.